Parent Gains Right to Dispute School Ban of Religious Music

By RONALD SMOTHERS

Published: October 7, 2006

A federal appeals court has revived a parent's court challenge of a 2004 decision by the South Orange-Maplewood school district to ban music with religious overtones from its holiday programs.

The district's action in 2004 turned the suburban New Jersey school district into a front in what many Christians considered a war against Christmas's religious character, drawing protesters to the area to sing Christmas carols outside the district's high school.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled on Thursday that a federal district court judge was wrong last summer to dismiss the suit by the parent, Michael Stratechuk.

Mr. Stratechuk had contended that a sudden vote by the school board to ban such holiday music programs that had previously been held conveyed ''a government-sponsored message of disapproval and hostility toward religion.'' He said the board's decision deprived his two children attending schools in the district from learning about religious ideas.

The judge, William H. Walls, cited the existence of a written district policy that allowed such programs ''if it achieves specific goals of the music curriculum.''

He concluded in his ruling that the written policy was permissive enough and respectful enough of religious freedom and that Mr. Stratechuk had in his complaint stated no legitimate challenge to it.

But the judges' panel ruled that Mr. Stratechuk's legal challenge was to the board's 2004 action, which he contended was more restrictive than the written policy. It was that 2004 action and its effects that the lower court should consider, ruled the panel, sending the case back to Judge Walls.

Ellen Bass, the school district's lawyer, had no comment on the ruling.

Robert Muise, a lawyer for the Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center, who represents Mr. Stratechuk, said that the ruling will require the school district to justify how the board's complete ban was consistent with its written rules.